1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to digital image processing, and more particularly to a super resolution (SR) system and method with database-free texture synthesis.
2. Description of Related Art
Super resolution (SR) is a technique that increases the resolution of an imaging system with a goal to recover a high-resolution image with sharp edges and rich details from a low-resolution input image. Due to the increasing gap between the resolution of image sources and display devices, super resolution has become an essential technique in many applications, such as TV scaler and digital holography.
There are two main categories in the conventional super resolution: edge-based approach and learning-based approach. The former one can generate extremely sharp edges but lack of details in the non-edge part; the latter one can give results with rich details but requires database and has difficulty controlling artifacts due to mismatch between the database and the input images. Moreover, there are some problems in the database generation. Large database implies large computation time, while small database may fail to provide suitable details for various inputs.
For the foregoing reasons, a need has arisen to propose a novel super resolution scheme for producing more rich, details and sharp edges without database.